Cheyne Beach Whaling Station
The Cheyne Beach Whaling Station (German: Cheyne-Beach-whaling station ) is now Albany's Historic Whaling station called.
The at Albany in Western Australia located whaling station has its historical roots in the 1840s. The whale recycling facility was put into operation in 1949 with moderate success. It was only with the takeover of the Cheyne Beach Whaling Company in the early 1950s that larger catches were achieved. 14,878 whales were shot between 1949 and 1978. All other whaling stations in Australia had already given up whaling for economic reasons. The deciding factor for the closure of the Cheyne Beach Whaling Station, however, were the weeks of non-violent actions by anti-whaling opponents at sea, who drove between the whalers in small inflatable boats and hindered the whaling. They intended to set an example to end Australian whaling, which they succeeded on November 20, 1978: The Cheyne Beach Whaling Company gave up.
In the 1980s the whaling station was reopened as a museum. According to the museum operator, it should be the only museum that comprehensively depicts the entire process of whale recycling by the whaler and subsequent industrial recycling.
location
The whaling station is located on Frenchman Bay in King George Sound , about 65 kilometers east of Albany. It was named after the successful entrepreneur and settler George McCartney Cheyne , who was also a whaler, as was Cheynes Beach , a small holiday complex . The whaling station is right next to the Torndirrup National Park on the peninsula of the same name .
history
In spring and winter, humpback whales and large schools of salmon swim off Cheynes Beach in spring and winter . This attracted whalers and anglers from an early age.
Whalers harpooned whales from the beach off Cheynes Beach as early as the 1840s. They made whale oil from whale fat and took the whales of large whales, which were used as whalebones . In the 1920s, the Westermann family began commercial fishing on the beach at Cheynes Beach. In 1946 the fisherman Charlie Westerberg built the first holiday home on the beach, as more and more tourists were vacationing there.
For a short time an Albany Whaling Company operated whaling on Cheynes Beach. In 1952, the Cheyne Beach Whaling Compagy built a whaling station and began the industrial exploitation of the humpback whales that had been shot . In the first year whaling was limited to a maximum of 50 humpback whales. In 1954, 1,016 tons of oil from 120 whales shot were sold. That was the total annual production of the whaling station, which at the time was worth 100,000 Australian pounds .
When the humpback whale catch quota dropped dramatically in 1962, sperm whales were harpooned instead . In 1970, 764 sperm whales were hunted and recycled, with the company's net income increasing from A $ 100,362 in 1969 to A $ 304,329 in 1970.
Harpooned Sperm Whale on the Ramp (1977)
Ramp to the Flensdeck (dismantling area)
Steam-driven saw for cutting off the whale heads
Skeleton of a sperm whale
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Whaling end
The first non-violent action against the last active whaling station in Australia began on August 28, 1977. With a Zodiac inflatable boat up to 30 nautical miles from the coast, anti-whaling opponents sit for weeks between the harpoons of three whaling ships that hunted sperm whales. Among the opponents of whaling were members of Greenpeace Australia Pacific , the later globally active organization Greenpeace. They were successful, because on November 20, 1978, the last whaling took place, which the Cheynes Beach Whaling Company carried out. The last whale in Australian waters was harpooned. At that time, Albany's whale industry ended and about 100 people became unemployed. The activists were Jonny Lewis , Bob Hunter , Tom Barber († 2017), Jean-Paul Gouin and the American tourist Aline Chaney, who later married Barber.
Aftermath
The Australian author and journalist Chris Pash wrote a book The Last Whale ( The last whale ) on whaling Australia, which was released of 2008. In addition to the establishment of Greenpeace, the closure of the Cheynes Beach Whaling Company and the dispute between Greenpeace activists, the fishing industry and fishermen play a central role. This book was shortlisted for the 2009 Frank Broeze Memorial Maritime History Book Prize , a prize for significant literature on the history of seafaring.
Whaling museum
The museum opened as Whale World after the whaling station closed in 1980 . According to the museum operator, it should be the only museum that comprehensibly shows the entire process of whale recycling from the whale hunter to the ramp to the cutting area, to the cooking of the bacon and the further recycling of the whale meat and bones.
Whalers , the ship Cheynes IV at the museum
Whaling boat (replica) used to harpoon
Whale cutting site
Ramp for landing the whales
Tanks for Tran
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Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Graham Readfern: An unpleasant business': the last Australian whale hunt , Nov. 20, 2018, on The Guardian . Retrieved July 9, 2019
- ↑ on The Last Whale . Retrieved July 9, 2019
- ↑ Historic Whaling Station , at discoverybay.com.au. Retrieved June 20, 2019.
- ↑ Why The Name Of Cheyne Marks Our South Coast , October 28, 1950, on The West Australian . Retrieved July 10, 2019
- ↑ Cheynes Beach , on abanygateway.com.au. Retrieved June 20, 2019.
- ↑ Whalung Firms Aims at launch in May. In: The West Australian . February 19, 1952, p. 6, on Trove. Retrieved June 20, 2019.
- ^ Whale Oil from Albany. In: Daily Commercial News and Shipping List. October 6, 1954, p. 1. Retrieved June 20, 2019.
- ↑ Whaling profit trebled. In: The Canberra Times . January 12, 1971. Retrieved June 20, 2019.
- ↑ a b History Whaling Station. discoverbay.com.au. Retrieved June 20, 2019.
- ↑ Chris Pash: The last whale . Fremantle Press, North Fremantle, WA 2008, ISBN 978-1-921361-32-6 .
Coordinates: 35 ° 5 ′ 41 ″ S , 117 ° 57 ′ 35 ″ E